The Trouble with Skepticism

[Speck Tater]

Let me start right off by saying that, historically, skepticism has been spectacularly successful. For thousand of years of recorded history the skeptics have almost always been right and the "true believers" have almost always been wrong. The problem is that skeptics tend to make the simple mistake of over generalization. In other words, they go from the acknowledged fact that the skeptics are almost always right to the erroneous generalization that skeptics are always right.

In truth, the glorious history of skepticism is also marred by numerous rather spectacular failures. Sometimes the skeptics are wrong, and sometimes they are spectacularly wrong.

The problem is that skeptics tend to sweep their failures under the rug and pretend that they don't exist. It is at this point that skepticism goes from being a defensible position to a quasi-religious dogma.

Don't get me wrong. I still believe that the skeptics are almost always right. And if I were simply trying to make money by placing bets on the outcome of various controversial topics I would always place my money on the skeptics. But in doing so I would not expect to win every bet, only the vast majority of them.

But those skeptics who have turned skepticism into a quasi-religious dogma, and refuse to acknowledge, probably even to themselves, skepticism's history of occasional failures, fool themselves into believing that, because of their skeptical position they are infallible. This is simple arrogance, and is not justified by the historical record.

The true skeptic, and I consider myself to be a true skeptic, is even skeptical of his fellow skeptics, and I, myself, have found many instances of what can only be called sloppy science published in the skeptical journals and web sites. Skeptics have to get realistic about their skepticism and realize that even though they are almost always right, they are sometimes wrong. And the truth of the matter is, they will never know what they are wrong about until they stop pretending to be infallible and admit that the possibility of error exists, however remote it might be.

I think I'm pretty much in the right place for the simple reason that the gullible call me a skeptic and the skeptics call me gullible. That I can be antagonistic to both brands of "true believer" I take as a validation that I'm on the right path.

"Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" ("But who watches the watchers?")
"It's not what you don't know that hurts you most, it's what you know that ain't so" --Will Rogers

[Cronus Protagonist]

1. When both sides think you're an idiot, sometimes you just are one.

"It's not what you don't know that hurts you most, it's what you know that ain't so" --Will Rogers

[dtexdem]

2. I'm not sure about this.

;-)

[Speck Tater]

11. Keep up the good work! :) Healthy skepticism is vital. nt

[zipplewrath]

3. Such as...

"In truth, the glorious history of skepticism is also marred by numerous rather spectacular failures. Sometimes the skeptics are wrong, and sometimes they are spectacularly wrong."

I'm curious of an example of this. It seems there should be a difference between a skeptic, and a closed mind. Yes, closed minds refused to consider evidence for a long time that the world was round, or not the center of the universe. I'm not sure I'd say that SKEPTICS did.

[Speck Tater]

6. A few examples...

The flat earth as the established view.
Ignaz Semmelweis vs the skeptical medical establishment.
Meteorites and the French Academy.
Powered heavier than air aircraft.
There are still a number of high-profile "climate change skeptics" who can't imagine that they might be wrong.

Now in all fairness, not ALL skeptics held fast to their flat earth, no germs, no stones from space, no climate change positions. Some were actually convinced by the evidence.

I suppose that the only real difference between, for example, the climate change skeptics and the skeptics who post on this forum is that the skeptics on this forum actually know they are right whereas the climate change skeptics ... oh wait, they think they know they are right too. In fact if you ask either group they will assure you that they, and only they, are absolutely correct, so in reality there is no difference between the two kinds of skeptics.

So in the end, that kind of skepticism is really a faith-based belief system. One has to believe in one's own infallibility.

That said, I'd still put my money on the skeptics, because in the long run they are almost always right. Almost.

[zipplewrath]

12. You have a broad description of skeptic

As I suggested in my post, there are the close minded, and then there are skeptics. Skeptics basically are the folks saying "show me". The close minded say "I don't care what you say, you're wrong". The flat earthers were "skeptics", they were close minded fools. There might have been a guy saying that "it looked flat to me" but then someone shows him the ship sinking below the horizon, and changes in shadows, and he says "okay, you might be on to something, show me more".

[Speck Tater]

19. And skeptics redefine "skeptic" to exclude each failure, thereby...

maintaining their illusion of infallibility.

The problem is that the "real" skeptic is open to new evidence. I have no doubt about that. But too many "amateur" skeptics, with no real command of science beyond what they've read in Scientific American, fancy themselves to be "skeptics" when in reality they are simply naysayers to anything new. They can be pretty safe in taking that position, however, because, as I've pointed out so many times, the skeptics are usually right.

And no, a real skeptic would not claim infallibility. But a great many of those who call themselves skeptics, while perhaps not openly declaring their infallibility, behave as if they believe themselves to be infallible, and anyone who dares disagree with them is obviously an incompetent fool. In the many, many years I have posted in this forum, whenever I post anything that suggests that some given skeptical position might need to be reconsidered the result is, invariably, a deluge of ad hominem attacks against me, telling me in no uncertain terms that I am an idiot that needs to be brought out of the dark ages and schooled by their supreme and superior knowledge of how the world works. That attitude speaks volumes to me about what the real attitude of these self-proclaimed "skeptics" really is.

They are first and foremost interested in proving their superiority by humiliating anyone who dares disagree with them. That is not an honest, open-minded skeptical attitude. That is rigid dogmatism in the service of ego gratification.

I won't bother to collect the statistics, but anyone who cares to examine the true nature of their attitude is free to browse this forum and collect past posts by self-proclaimed skeptics and to take a look at the attitude demonstrated by those posts. I don't have to prove this point. The history of posts is right here in this forum to back up this claim. The data is freely available. Check it out for yourselves. Self-proclaimed skeptics, at least in this forum, may not proclaim their infallibility explicitly, but they clearly demonstrate an attitude of smug superiority and implied infallibility. Check it out for yourselves.

Now the responses to this post from skeptics will be of two kinds: "No it's not true" (without any data to back up that claim.) or "Maybe some skeptics are that way, but not ME." The first response will more likely take the form of "This OP is a hopeless idiot who needs to be educated (presumably by the vastly superior master race of skeptics) about how science really works."

[skepticscott]

24. Fine, then provide us with evidence

to back up your claims, since you've avoided doing it below. Where have skeptics claimed "infallibility", expect in your imagination? Where have skeptics humiliated people who dare to disagree with them, when the evidence wasn't overwhelmingly on their side? Show us where skeptics have been "naysayers to anything new" that has credible evidence to support it. You claim that those posts are all over the place...well, I'm skeptical. Show us some. While yore at it, give us some examples of how skeptics redefine "skeptic" to exclude each failure.

And don't think it hasn't been noticed how you make the bogus transition between "some skeptics" and skepticism as a way of thinking.

[Speck Tater]

25. OK. You win. You're right. I change my mind. nt

[skepticscott]

26. Translation: I have no evidence to back up my claims

None at all. It was all just invented nonsense and straw men.

And until some evidence magically appears, I think we can relegate your OP to its rightful status..steaming and stinking behind a horse.

[Speck Tater]

29. Yup. You're right. You're always right. I conceed. nt

[Jim__]

36. Two examples: Wegener and Copernicus.

Since his ideas challenged scientists in geology, geophysics, zoogeography and paleontology, it demonstrates the reactions of different communities of scientists. The reactions by the leading authorities in the different disciplines was so strong and so negative that serious discussion of the concept stopped. One noted scientist, the geologist Barry Willis, seemed to be speaking for the rest when he said:

further discussion of it merely incumbers the literature and befogs the mind of fellow students.

Barry Willis's and the other scientists wishes were fulfilled. Discussion did stop in the larger scientific community and students' minds were not befogged. The world had to wait until the 1960's for a wide discussion of the Continental Drift Theory to be restarted.

...



Thus far the picture painted of Alfred Wegener's contemporaries is not flattering. But this might be unfair. One would expect some scientists to resist ideas that would invalidate their life's work. But it doesn't explain all criticism of Wegener's ideas. Wegener presented very compelling arguments for Continental Drift but there were alternate explanations for some of his observations. To explain the unusual distribution of fossils in the Southern Hemisphere some scientists proposed there may once have been a network of land bridges between the different continents. To explain the existence of fossils of temperate species being found in arctic regions, the existence of warm water currents was proposed. Modern scientists would look at these explanations as even less credible than those proposed by Wegener, but they did help to preserve the steady state theory.

New theories do not always arrive with all the t's crossed and i's dotted. Wegener did not have an explanation for how continental drift could have occurred. He proposed two different mechanisms for this drift, one based on the centrifugal force caused by the rotation of the earth and a 'tidal argument' based on the tidal attraction of the sun and the moon. These explanations could easily be proven inadequate and opened Wegener to ridicule because they were orders of magnitude too weak. Wegener really did not believe that he had the explanation for the mechanism, but that this should not stop discussion of a hypothesis. The scientists of the time disagreed. After Alfred Wegener died, the Continental Drift Theory was quietly swept under the rug. With the Continental Drift Theory out of the way, the existing theories of continent formation were able to survive, with little challenge until the 1960's.

more ...

Empirical evidence argued against Copernicus' heliocentric theory: if you threw an object straight up, it came straight down; and there was no (observable) stellar parallax - and wouldn't be for almost 300 years. The arguments for Copernicus' idea were metaphysical - essentially, it pointed to a simpler description of the universe.

[zipplewrath]

38. I like your examples

I think it is a touch of a stretch to refer to these people as "skeptics". I'm sure there were skeptics on the sidelines however. But what you have here is basically competing theories. Skeptics, in my mind, are not folks who necessarily offer competing hypotheses, but merely defend the status quo until superior evidence is produced.

What you are referencing is a "known" problem within science. Basically, incrementalism is preferred over wholesale shifts. An interesting study was done of calculations of the gravitational constant. What can be seen is that researchers had a tendency to influence their data to merely "shift" the value in small increments, corrupting their data sets to do so. You rarely see someone come out and suggest that existing constants are wrong in the second or third decimal place. It is more likely to see them shift over time as the accuracy also increases.

[skepticscott]

39. So where does this "known" problem

manifest itself? What state of egregious error does science find itself in currently as a result of this "problem"?

And incrementalism is not consciously preferred in science, but is simply more common and more likely to occur. Proper and rational changes in scientific understanding should be based on evidence sufficient to overturn existing tenets. Large changes require the accumulation of more evidence, which takes more time and occurs less often. Small changes require less evidence. Not a hard concept.

[MarkCharles]

41. "Large changes require the accumulation of more evidence, which takes more time"...

strange it is how believers fault science for changing over time, but defend the dogma and doctrines that no longer require non-virgin young girls to be stoned to death, no longer require men to take and "know" as many slaves as they want, etc., as the Bible tells them to do.

Modern day believers want to make their religion reflect a more "humane" view of the world, and want rational people to be accepting of their religion as something more "rational" than what is in the Bible.

[skepticscott]

42. Strange too

that anti-science types among the religionists sometimes accuse science of being dogmatic and closed-minded, and at other times point out the times that science has changed its view of things as evidence that science can't be trusted to get things right.

Ya just can't win with some folk.

[Odin2005]

48. The rejection of Wegener had to do with geologists being overly deferential to physicists...

...at the time. In the late 1800s and early 1900s a biologist or geologist who proposed an hypothesis that could not be explained by known physics usually became the subject of mockery.

[Deep13]

4. *shrug* No one is perfect. Anyone can make a mistake. nt

[PATRICK]

5. Skeptic and Cynic

although having origins(at least) in philosophical methods of thought are considered derogatory terms- i.e. with an emotional bias on the part of the defender and on the part of the attacked. Which is which gets obscured and hence reason is the main casualty, reason which admittedly progresses from emotions. Love of wisdom. Philosopher. That term is not derogatory so long as it does not engage in battle.

The fog of logic versus the appeal of wishful thinking and stress reducing, profitable conclusions is really not so easy to navigate. I too am an idiot. There the entire human race has universal solidarity. We are the insufficient centers of non-viable universes of perception and outcome management. In that you cannot deny faith its required humility nor reason its critical thinking. But we do and we have a mess that even absurdism does not explain.

[pokerfan]

7. See Carl Sagan's 'The Burden of Skepticism'

It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas … If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you … On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful ideas from the worthless ones.

"The Burden of Skepticism", Skeptical Inquirer 12 (1), Fall 1987, ISSN 0194-6730

[Speck Tater]

9. +1000 Exactly my point. People who call themselves skeptics are often utterly closed minded. nt

[MarkCharles]

13. That is simply self-contradictory. Skeptics' first obligation is

to NOT take anything on face value, nor to have a pre-defined position.
,
I'm sorry, but for you to make that blanket prejudicial statement "People who call themselves skeptics are often utterly closed minded", sounds to me, that you have already made up your mind, that you don't know the proper definition of skepticism, and that such facts will have little chance of survival close to that brain of yours.

[jeepnstein]

8. I have my doubts about that.

[Speck Tater]

10. Good for you! :) nt

[skepticscott]

14. First of all

can you cite anywhere that skeptics have made the claim that they are ALWAYS right? Who has claimed that skepticism is "infallible"?

Second, skepticism simply means that the strength of your convictions should be directly related to the strength of the evidence supporting those convictions. Can you cite any instances where this has been violated? Can you cite any instances where skepticism has claimed to have discovered the true and final answer to something, and that from this point on, convictions will never change, no matter what new evidence comes along? What "failures" do skeptics still maintain don't exist?

[MarkCharles]

15. Well stated! Thank you!

[frogmarch]

16. Right. When skeptics

become debunkers, they're no different from the people whose claims they set out to prove false.

[skepticscott]

17. And how exactly do you define

"debunker"? Can you cite instances of "debunking" in which all of the credible and reliable evidence was ignored?

[frogmarch]

20. Donald Menzel was an

astronomer who labeled all UFO sightings “bunk.” He didn’t bother to try to investigate any of the reported sightings he “debunked;” he firmly believed that no unidentified flying objects could be alien crafts (even when no one was making a claim to the contrary), so he lumped all reported sightings of unidentified flying objects together as bunk and “debunked” them. Philip Klass did the same thing, with a few exceptions. These are the kind “skeptics” I was referring to – the ones who are convinced that such-and-such is bunk and dismiss it out of hand. They are true believers, not true skeptics.

It is good to debunk spiritual mediums and fork benders and any other charlatans who make paranormal claims, and enough of them have been shown to be frauds that I think it’s safe to assume, until supporting evidence for these phenomena present themselves, that no one can converse with dead people or bend tableware with their minds.

My problem is with so-called skeptics who, like Menzel and Klass were, are hell-bent on debunking everything that they themselves truly believe to be false, without any evidence to support their claims.

[MarkCharles]

21. "without any evidence to support their claims"

Show me all that "evidence" of the faith based religious folk, okay?

[frogmarch]

22. I'm an atheist, so

I can't oblige you there.

Atheist - one who is without a belief in dieties.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

40. I'm waiting too. Been waiting over fifty years for evidence.

[skepticscott]

23. Sorry, but you're dead wrong about Klass

He investigated UFO claims thoroughly and showed that there were other, more mundane explanations for the incidents than alien spacecraft. It's not up to a skeptic to prove that it is 100% certain that a certain thing couldn't be due to "X". They are not the ones making claims. It's up to those who ARE making the claim of alien visitation to provide sufficient affirmative evidence (not simply their arguments from ignorance or personal incredulity) to show that their version of things is the best and most likely explanation.

And frankly, when you've investigated enough bogus claims and seen the way that people delude and deceive themselves and others, you do tend to become dismissive, especially when the prima facie evidence is the same thing you've seen fail a hundred times before. If the claimants can't come up with anything better after so many tries, they lose the right to be taken seriously.

[frogmarch]

30. Klass was

a controversial character, even outside the UFO community.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_J._Klass (Yes, I know it’s Wiki.)

snips:

Klass's involvement in the UFO field can be traced to his reading of journalist John G. Fuller's Incident at Exeter (1966), about a series of UFO sightings in and around Exeter, New Hampshire.<6> Noting that many of the Exeter UFO incidents took place close to high-power electric lines, Klass suspected that the UFO reports were best explained as a previously unknown type of plasma or ball lightning that might have been generated from the power lines or their transformers. He later argued that this explanation might not apply only to the Exeter case, but to many other UFO reports. A plasma, thought Klass, could be consistent with many UFO reports of bright lights moving erratically; a highly-charged plasma might further explain the reported effects of UFOs on the electrical systems of airplanes and automobiles.

Klass initially applied this theory cautiously and selectively in a series of magazine articles. He and physicist James E. McDonald exchanged cordial letters on the subject, and McDonald agreed that some UFOs might be a type of ball lighting. However, in his first book Klass argued that plasmas could explain most or all UFOs, even cases of alleged alien abduction.

Although a team of plasma experts rejected Klass’s plasma hypothesis, calling it unscientific, since then some scientists have modified Klass’s ideas and have come to accept plasma as a reasonable explanation for some UFO sightings.

In the late 1960s, Klass quietly abandoned his plasma theory, and afterwards argued that all UFO sightings could be explained as misidentification of normal phenomena (such as clouds, stars, comets or airplanes), and/or as hoaxes. Clark contends<16>that Klass argued in favor of hoaxes more than almost any other UFO skeptic, but that Klass rarely had evidence in favor of his accusations; this position was echoed by Don Ecker<17> who asserted that during a 1992 debate, Klass made unsubstantiated charges of "drug smuggling" against Australian pilot Frederick Valentich, who disappeared in 1978 after claiming a strange UFO was flying near his airplane.

In the 1970s, Klass heaped praise on astronomer and UFO investigator Allan Hendry's The UFO Handbook, but Hendry<18> objected strongly to Klass's modus operandi, which Hendry argued was based on suppressed and distorted evidence, unscientific reasoning, ad hominem attacks, smear campaigns, character assassination, scientific bait and switch tactics, and seemingly refusing to evaluate evidence that conflicted with his preconceptions. (emphasis mine.)

I’m not a scientist, but I think the charged plasma hypothesis sounds like a good one to explain some UFO sightings, and so do ball lightning, misidentification of normal objects like planets and flocks of birds, and hoaxes. The point is that apparently Klass had no evidence to support his hypotheses, yet he vehemently criticized those on the other side of the fence for having no evidence for theirs. Klass was a debunker, not a true skeptic. His mind was made up that UFOs were not ET, and he set out to debunk any claims to the contrary.

I agree with you that certain claims have been shown so many times to be false that they hardly deserve attention, but when someone asserts “There are no gods,” and “There are no ETs zipping around out there, watching us,” well, then the burden of proof is on that person. The other day on an astrophysics blog, a reader asked, “Could some UFOs be ET crafts?” The “scientific” reply given was “No.”

If someone were to present irrefutable evidence proving deities exist, I would no longer be without belief in deities and wouldn’t call myself an atheist. Same way with flying saucers, ghosts, Bigfoot, Nessie, whatever. Till evidence for these things is found, I’ll remain a skeptic, one without belief in them. It’s one thing to debunk individual paranormal claims – supposed pictures of ETs and wild stories of ET abductions, but it’s another to “debunk” without evidence the possibility of such phenomena existing. Absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence. It's usually a good indicator of whether something exists, but not always.

[skepticscott]

31. All of which fails to show any instance

where credible and reliable evidence that alien visitation was the most likely explanation for a UFO sighting was ignored. Let alone where such visitation could be said to have been anything close to proven. Your unattributed blog post was not from Klass. And are you really implying that no possible evidence could have convinced Klass that we were being visited by aliens? Just as with "god", the really conclusive evidence never seems to materialize, strangely enough.

[frogmarch]

34. No, and I didn't ever argue that evidence was

ignored. Not every UFO sighting could, or can, be investigated, since there's often nothing to investigate afterwards, so Klass and others formed reasonable hypotheses to explain what the objects in question probably were. However, Klass had no more evidence to support his various hypotheses than the UFO people had for theirs, yet Klass was determined to debunk theirs, regardless of how many different hypotheses had had to come up with to do it.

I suppose that if he'd been confronted with solid evidence of ETs flying around Earth, Klass would have changed his mind. If he'd survived the shock.

The world of UFOlogy is swarming with lunatics, but there are some reputable scientists who don't find the basic idea of ET/UFO preposterous. I kind of do, but the concept of physical ETs seems more plausible to me than the existence of ethereal gods.

[skepticscott]

35. Just above, you said about Klass

"His mind was made up that UFOs were not ET"

And now you're saying "I suppose that if he'd been confronted with solid evidence of ETs flying around Earth, Klass would have changed his mind."

Apparently your initial statement was just made up nonsense, since you freely admit that, given sufficient evidence, he could have been convinced that some UFO WERE extraterrestrial. Just like any good skeptic. Or perhaps you think he was being dogmatic and closed-minded for requiring "solid" evidence, as opposed to simply the type of evidence that he knew from long experience (as opposed to unjustified preconception, as you allege) was highly liable to bias and misinterpretation.

Thanks for making my point...anything else?

[frogmarch]

43. What's your deal?

What are you trying to prove by nitpicking at everything I say? (I thought we were through with this, and I almost missed your response.)

Yes, Klass had his mind made up that no UFOs were alien crafts. (I wasn’t in his head, so I should say that in my opinion he did.) In a PBS NOVA interview he said this:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/aliens/philipklass.html (emphasis mine)

In nearly 30 years of searching, investigating famous cases, I have yet to find one that cannot be explained in down-to-earth prosaic terms. Therefore, if somebody says to me, "I have been abducted by strange looking creatures that do these dreadful things to me," I'm quite confident that they could not possibly be extraterrestrials. Maybe they're mischievous Irish leprechauns; maybe they're the mischievous elves of Santa Claus; maybe they are agents of the devil—now I don't believe in any of these. But I have not spent 30 years investigating whether the leprechauns exist. But I am quite confident that there is no scientific credible evidence to show that we've had alien visitors, let alone that they're doing these dreadful things.

~~

And yes, I think if he’d encountered an ET firsthand and was confronted with inescapable evidence that it was an ET, Klass would have eventually accepted the ET as real. So would any sane person, wouldn’t they? I would.

Excerpts from a 1991 article about Philip Klass:

http://www.nicap.org/klassvufo.htm

To destroy the UFO "problem" Klass concluded that ufologists should be the target as much as the UFOs themselves. If the ufologists could be publicly shamed or embarrassed on any grounds (not just professional but personal as well), who would take their pronouncements about UFOs seriously?

So anybody who associated himself sympathetically with UFOs was fair game for The Treatment. The Treatment's operating assumption was that someone too vocally pro-UFO and/or critical of Klass was probably morally wanting in some way and Klass, in the name of "Boy Scout" ethics, took it upon himself to show the world just how and where.

The first recipient of The Treatment was the late James E. McDonald, a respected University of Arizona atmospheric physicist and UFO advocate who among other transgressions devastatingly criticized UFOs - Identified which he characterized (in common, incidentally, with at least one prominent UFO skeptic) as an exercise in pseudoscience. In response Klass issued a blizzard of "white papers" attacking McDonald's credibility, claiming he had caught the scientist shifting his position without acknowledging it. Without saying so directly, Klass was implying that these alleged position shifts suggested McDonald was dishonest - a tactic Klass would use against many other targets in the future.

Klass conducted a vigorous although ultimately unsuccessful campaign in government circles to prove that McDonald was misusing navy funds to investigate UFOs. He apparently reported as much to columnist Jack Anderson who repeated the allegation in a subsequent newspaper article. It was not enough for Klass to attempt to show that McDonald was wrong about UFOs - he accused him of abusing public funds and strongly implied that he was a liar as well.

The article goes on to say that in the years that followed, Klass sometimes did background checks on UFO proponents, looking into everything they wrote or said that might suggest they’d changed their minds and interviewed their relatives and employers to find some dirt he could use against them. Klass – what a guy.

This getting tiresome, isn’t it? Going around in circles is pointless.

[skepticscott]

44. I can understand why you'd want to call it nitpicking

when I completely explode the heart of your argument. And your response to something that you call "nitpicking" is rather elaborate..strange, that.

But what it all boils down to is what you're well aware of, because you've posted and emphasized it yourself:

But I am quite confident that there is no scientific credible evidence to show that we've had alien visitors, let alone that they're doing these dreadful things. (YOUR emphasis)

"And yes, I think if he’d encountered an ET firsthand and was confronted with inescapable evidence that it was an ET, Klass would have eventually accepted the ET as real. So would any sane person, wouldn’t they?"

In other words, despite your blathering, Klass was doing nothing contrary to the principles of rational, scientific inquiry and skepticism. He declined to accept claims with insufficient evidence to back them up (and properly counted anecdotal accounts of alien visitation with more mundane explanations as insufficient), but would have accepted claims when they DID have sufficient evidence. Exactly which part of that do you object to? That he wasn't quite as credulous about little green men as you might have liked?

[frogmarch]

45. Klass

was a militant UFO debunker. He was prejudiced against the possibility that any UFO sightings could be ET. Despite what you seem to think, he didn’t investigate all the cases he debunked. In fact, Klass only occasionally did field investigations or interviewed in person any of the people who said they’d seen UFOs. He talked to some on the phone. Then he dismissed the claims.

I remember when in 1983 he tried to shut down a UFO conference at the University of Nebraska by putting a bug in the ear of a school administrator that ufologists supported Communism, and that the university would be supporting Nazis if they let the conference to be held there. What a turd. When Klass found out the administrator had released what Klass had said to the press, Klass threatened to sue. I don't think it went any further than that.

The man certainly seems to have had an axe to grind with regards to UFO. My problem with “skeptics” like Klass is that they are frauds, just like UFO proponents are who make absurd claims.

I have no belief in earth-visiting extraterrestrials. I doubt there are any, but unlike debunkers, I think that whether they exist remains to be seen and I'm willing to say I don't know.

[skepticscott]

46. So can you cite ONE case

in which there was clear and convincing evidence that alien visitation was the best explanation for an incident, and in which Klass either falsified or covered up that evidence to fit some preconceived notion of his? If not, then your characterization of him as a "fraud" is pure bullshit. There is nothing fraudulent about demanding evidence before accepting something, or dismissing claims based on insufficient evidence.

And you seem to be tossing around the word "debunker" as a blanket disparagement, without even having any idea what you mean by it.

[cleanhippie]

47. I see what you are saying, but if a more reasonable and plausible explanation is to be found...

then the more reasonable and plausible explanation is more likely to be correct.

[freshwest]

18. +1

[Humanist_Activist]

27. Word of advice, don't criticize a subject that you aren't versed in...

as others have stated, you have misconstrued what skepticism is, and indeed seem completely ignorant of the subject.

[MarkCharles]

28. +1,000,000

[skepticscott]

32. Good news

the OP has agreed that his post was a steaming pile of horseshit, and that no one should take it, or him, seriously.

Please move along to the next post.

[NMMNG]

33. ...

[Silent3]

37. Your understanding of skepticism is on par with your understanding...

...of the difference between evidence and anecdote, or the difference between relying on an established* body of knowledge and anecdote.

In other words, not very impressive.

Got any more straw men you'd like to parade about in order to demonstrate your comparative wisdom, open-mindedness, and judicious balance?

*"Established" does not mean "unquestioned" or "unquestionable". I thought I'd get that straw man out of the way for you, save you the trouble.

[Taverner]

49. Not at all - in fact skeptics ADMIT their failures, and re run the tests

Every evolutionary biologist knows about the Piltdown Man hoax. They teach it in schools at all levels. It is a classic example of the scientific community being duped, and should be seen as support for skepticism

[Demstud]

50. If a skeptic thinks he's always right, then he's not a skeptic :-P

Skepticism is part of the scientific process. Unfortunately, there are some less educated "skeptics" out there who just develop reactionary conclusions without actual testing of their ideas. Like people "skeptical" about Obama's birthplace.